


someday we may see (a woman king on the throne)

by wearethenorth



Category: The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Always a Different Sex, Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, But Still Great, F/M, Kíli Is a Little Shit, Thorin Is an Idiot, basically fem!fili takes on Middle Earth, thranduil is not an asshole
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-11-08
Updated: 2014-11-08
Packaged: 2018-02-24 15:26:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2586452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wearethenorth/pseuds/wearethenorth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"One day you will be queen, and you will understand."</p>
<p>She didn't think she would.</p>
            </blockquote>





	someday we may see (a woman king on the throne)

**Author's Note:**

> so i finally had time to write and this is what happened  
> title from Iron & Wine song

Fili, daughter of Dìs, daughter of Thrain, son of Thror, was not like the other dwarrowdams.

(In fact, most dwarrows found the heirs of Durin too much of an oddity--i.e. annoyance--to put forth the effort of actually getting to know them well enough to do anything other than wonder exactly what those differences were.)

Perhaps it was the strange lack of a beard--as it was with Kili, for their mother had an extravagant and intricately braided and bejeweled beard, or so the older dwarrows would say she did back in Erebor.

Or maybe Fili's penchant for armoring herself in her father's old war livery and accompanying her uncle on hunts outside of the mountainous valleys of Ered Luin.

Or maybe it was when the younger dyed his hair a dark shade of brown, or when the elder sheared off her flowing gold locks and plucked the hairs off her chin in honor of the loss of her father.

Either way, the exiled prince and princess of Erebor were not what one would expect when the word 'dwarf' came up in a conversation, despite their short stature.

So when the two dwarrows volunteered to travel to Bree-land with their uncle's company, naturally, there were complaints.

"They're just wee faunts!"

"Fili should stay behind, where she's safe! Dwarrowdams are too precious to go gallivanting off on adventures!"

"Dis will skin us alive, mark my words..."

Thorin had put an end to that from the beginning, claiming that as the future queen and prince of Erebor, they should be present when they were to reclaim their homeland, but the grumbles did not cease until much later, when they had left the Blue Mountains and arrived before a peculiar looking green door.

("Fili--" "And Kili--" "At your service!")

The poor halfling had almost fainted on the spot when she had handed him her assortment of knives and daggers with a quick wink and a quirk of her lips.

("Oh, heavens, you're a woman!")

When they had set out the morning after, she had bet against the halfling, but when he showed up out of the blue with Balin's contract waving behind him, she was the one to lift him up onto Myrtle, the gentlest pony in the lot.

She had underestimated the halfling--just as others underestimated her--and she would not be so quick to make that mistake again.

When they arrived in Rivendell--tired and sweating and smelling somewhat of troll--Lord Elrond had escorted her to her own chamber, and the dwarrows, who normally would have argued against her separation from them, stayed silent. She may have been a respected warrior among them, but she was young yet, and a woman. The elves, they knew, would see to her well.

The same could not be said for the elves of Mirkwood, however.

The blonde one, their leader, she supposed, merely quirked a brow at her with a mocking smile. "What's this? A female dwarf? And here I thought you all just spouted out of holes in the ground!"

“The word you are looking for, you pointy-eared _orvelethron,_ is dwarrowdam!"

After that comment--no matter that she had said it in _their_ language--the forest guard had thrown her into a cell with Kili--after ridding her of her assortment of knives, the pointy-eared bastards.

(Later she’d find out that she’d called the prince of the Woodland Realm a ‘son of an orc’ and she’d laugh until she’d cry.)

"Fee?"

"Yes?"

"I think I may be in love with the captain of the guard."

It was that same captain who had come to retrieve her, throwing a glance in Kili's direction as she unlocked the cell door.

"The king wants an audience with your wife."

Kili sputtered for a good few minutes before he managed to inform the she-elf that Fili was his older sister.It may have been a trick of the light, but Fili swore she could see both of them blushing madly.

The Elvenking was everything Fili had thought he would be, and nothing all the same.

He sat on a throne of intricately carved wood, legs crossed, as if he had no care in the world, and the longer she stared at him, the more uncomfortable she felt in her dirty and tattered attire.

(She’d last bathed in Beorn’s realm, but, sadly, the gentle giant did not have garb small enough to fit her.)

"I must confess, when my guard told me of a dwarrowdam in their midst, I hesitated to believe them. I still do."

"And why would that be, oh king?"

"Because it has been an age since the line of Durin has ever produced such a rare jewel. A true diamond in the rough."

If she had blushed, she would blame it on the sweet Dorwinion he had offered her. Thorin would have her head if he knew that she was wondering if the Elfking was as hairless as he seemed to be underneath all his clothing. After, he had ordered her to be taken to a spare guest room, to be washed and dressed and then brought to their feast of starlight.

"As befits the future Queen Under the Mountain."

She should have been suspicious, worried even, but the elfking was like nothing she had ever seen, beautiful and fierce and ethereal and dangerous, like the white elk he boasted of so much.

She arrived at the feast smelling sweet and clean, diamonds and emeralds adorning her short hair (she had almost fought with her handmaidens when they made to take off the iron rings on her ears and the plates hanging down the side of her face) and fingers, which Thranduil had placed a lingering kiss upon, and she had taken up a seat on the king's right hand side.

A place of honor.

A place for a _queen._

She did not miss the strange looks the blonde haired elf from before, who she had figured was the king's son--where was the queen?--kept sending her way.

The feast was quaint, Thranduil assured her, merely a ceremony the Silvan elves insisted on having, though he did admit to enjoying it immensely, but it was grander than anything Fili had ever witnessed in Ered Luin.

"If you don't mind my asking, dear lady, why ever is your hair cut so short? I have known dwarf women to be quite fond of their locks."

Fili knew he had meant to ask after her beard as well, but had seemed to rethink the question--as it would have been rude to question a dwarrowdam of the state of her beard. So she told him of her father, and how he had been a border guard born and bred in Ered Luin, and had made the mistake of falling in love with the exiled princess of Erebor. She told him of how he had died shortly after her brother was born. A goblin attack during one of his patrols, and when he made to apologize for her loss, Fili told him that once their quest was over, he would be avenged ten times over.

She might have been mistaken, but she thought the king's gaze on her seemed brighter.

She remembered that bright gaze when Bilbo came to her rooms, which she found had not been locked as they had before (funny how she did not think to try it), and led her down into the dungeons.

She remembered that bright gaze when the company looked at her, bedecked in a dress of starlight and adorned in jewels of every color, in varying degrees of horror, disappointment, and, in Ori's and Kili's case, wonder.

She remembered that bright gaze when she ducked heads with her brother right before climbing into her barrel.

"Kee?"

"Yes, Fili?"

"I think I might be in love with the king of the woodland realm."

And she remembered that gaze when the woodland prince hesitated in letting loose an arrow aimed in her general direction.

By the time he had recovered, she was barreling down the forest river, and he was set upon by orcs.

Fili worried about the prince when they were crossing the Long Lake on the bowman's barge.

She worried about the king, too, with his wild, almost manic, eyes.

She had seen that same look on Thorin countless times.

That desperation.

That occasional madness that sparked her uncle's blue irises.

Fili wondered if that's what it took to be a king.

She wondered if that was what would happen to her, too, when she became queen.

She wondered at it again when Thorin laid a large hand on Kili's shoulder and ordered him to stay behind in Esgaroth. She had protested, naturally.

("I will carry him if I must!")

She would not leave him and reclaim the Lonely Mountain alone. Kili was her brother. Her little brother, who used to sit diligently at Thorin's feet with her before the fireplace as he would regale them with tales of his adventures.

Thorin did not share her sentiment.

"One day you will be queen, and you will understand," he sighed.

She didn't think she would.

"I cannot risk this quest for the sake of one dwarf. Not even my own kin. A good king must make these sacrifices."

Perhaps that was why she stepped off of the boat and out of her uncle's arms with a scowl.

"Don't be a fool, Fili. You belong with the company."

"I belong with my brother," she had answered.

If staying with Kili meant that she was not fit to rule, then so be it.

She didn't think she wanted to rule.

Kili, apparently, didn't share her fervor.

He scolded her, albeit weakly, as he lay on the bowman's table, his fever high as Oin tended to him.

"You should've gone with him."

"I am meant to stay here."

"You're the future queen," he said.

"And you're the prince. My brother, above all. Mother made me promise to protect you."

And protect him she did. When the orcs fell upon the bargeman's home, she fought back against their ever growing numbers valiantly, following after the woodland prince as he chased the Defiler's spawn. It was how, once more, she ended up captured by the Elvenking, watching the burning of the Long Lake from a relatively safe distance.

When the dragon descended over Esgaroth, she fought against her captors fervently, biting and scratching and screaming until it was the Elfking himself who silenced her, his dark armor gleaming in the moonlight.

"You fight against me still, princess. Where will you go if you escape? Your kin are in the mountain, dead, for all we know. You have no one, no home. This journey was fruitless, and all you have wrought is the dragon's fury."

And then Smaug was falling in a flurry of red scales and smoke and taking half of Esgaroth with him into the lake, and Fili didn't stop screaming for her brother.

Not until she saw the red-haired captain of the guard drag him and Oin and Bofur onto the lakeshore.

Not until she was by his side, cradling her little Kili in her arms as he coughed water onto her furs.

"To think I almost broke my promise," he joked weakly.

She cuffed him upside the head for that.

When the elven guard hauled them to their feet, Fili didn't put up as much of a fight as earlier, but she kept one steady hand on the scruff of Kili's coat, unwilling to be parted from him once more.

She flinched when the captain of the guard--("Her name is Tauriel, Fee.")--was apprehended by the Elfking, gripping Kili tighter when he made to go to her side.

"What now, Fili?"

She didn't know.

If Thorin was dead, as the Elfking assured her, she was queen now.

(And a fine hostage besides. It seemed the Elfking would get his white gems after all.)

Later, when Kili was tucked safely away in the healing tents with all the other refugees, Fili sat silently by the lakeshore, tears falling from her eyes as she watched the burning embers of what once was Laketown. She mourned for her uncle, who had raised her as his heir, as if she was his own daughter. She mourned for Balin, who used to sit her in his lap in front of a roaring fire and regale tales of dragons and heroes, and Dwalin, who had been the one to teach her how to fight with her two swords. She mourned for her cousin Gloin, who only wanted to see his son, Gimli, once more. She mourned for Bombur, and Bifur, Nori, Dori, and Ori, who had knitted her a sweater just before they had set off.

It was how the Elfking found her, sniffling and sharpening her swords (as she was wont to do when she was deep in thought).

"There is news from Erebor. Your uncle and his company live." He had been so startled when the she-dwarf had jumped to her feet and wrapped her arms around his waist, tears dripping onto his dark armor. "Why do you weep, mîr-nin?"

She had started at the sound of his voice, as if only just realizing _who_ she had embraced, and jumped out of his arms as if she had been burned.

"I'm not weeping!"

Fili had wiped furiously at her eyes and turned to march away, but the Elfking had stepped before her, an amused smile on his face. He told her that she had no cause to worry, that it was joyous news to hear of the survival of a loved one. But when he stepped before her once more as she turned to flee, she kicked him hard in the shin with a steel-toed boot, smirked as she dodged his grasp and ran into the night.

Perhaps that had not been as wise as it had seemed at the time, Fili reflected as she sat in an armchair in the Elfking's own tent, arms folded over her chest as the aforementioned king scolded her like she was a petulant child.

Fili did as any dwarf woman of her station would do. She grasped her hair and began to braid it, completely ignoring what was being said. It was only when the curl was flicked from her hand that she looked up, a feral snarl on her lips, for it was a grievous insult to touch a dwarven woman's hair without her permission.

Her protest was cut short when his mouth descended on her own, his lips soft in contrast to hers, which were scabbed and scarred from years of battles and brawls.

"How I have longed to do that," he breathed onto her face. The kiss was soft and sweet, and altogether too short for her taste, so she grasped the Elfking by the collar of his tunic and brought him to his knees in front of her chair, her short legs keeping him in place as she kissed him in earnest.

She had not meant for it to happen. Neither of them had. He was an enemy to her people, had abandoned them in an hour of need. But she couldn't quite bring herself to care when she woke up to him wrapped around her like a cat, his large hand spanning across the muscled plane of her belly, and his face buried into the back of her neck.

She woke him up with a soft elbow to the gut, and he had grunted once, kissed her soundly and got to his feet, stretching high, as if to touch the roof of the tent.

She ogled him, and he smiled at her lazily, and thoughts of their future came to her unbidden.

"What will you do now?" Fili asked.

"We will march on the Lonely Mountain and demand recompense for the burning of Esgaroth."

"The Greenwood was not harmed by the dragon's flames. To what end do you accompany these men?"

At this, he said nothing, only continued to dress.

She had sighed, and reluctantly pulled on her clothes as well, her hand pausing over the coat she had been given at Laketown.

The Elfking, it seemed, noticed as well, for at the next moment, something heavy and soft was laid on her shoulders. "My father's cloak," she held it to her nose and breathed in the scent of it. Someone had washed it, and it smelled faintly of pine needles. "I thought I had lost it in the forest."

He bent his neck and kissed her, his hands threading into her hair, before he left her.

She did not see him again until Bofur brought her news from the bargeman, claiming that there was a small council being convened in the Master's tent, and that she was privy to it.

He might have stretched the truth a little, as most of the attendees jumped to their feet in protest when she marched into the tent like a queen.

"She's a woman!"

"Her uncle's the reason we're in this mess!"

"Aye, kill her and be done with it!"

She had reached for the swords at her back--which had been bequeathed back to her by her newly acquired lover the night before--but at his sharp command, the nobles all fell back to their chairs silently.

"You see before you the heir to the throne of Erebor," he said lowly. "Treat her with the respect she is due."

There were a few grumbles, mainly from the Master and his steward, but the Elven lords bowed their heads to her, having said nothing against Fili moments before.

It was the bargeman--or should she say bowman?--that spoke next, his words soft and measured, so much so that she had to strain her ears to hear him over the clamor outside of the tent. It was clear he was unused to being in a position of power. But it was his words that caught her attention quickly.

"Why does it seem to me that you prepare for war? Were you not all celebrating our return to the east naught but a fortnight ago?"

"That was before we knew what tidings it would bring, girl."

The speaker was the Master's steward, and when she turned to look at him, he quelled under her hard stare.

"My uncle will give you the provisions you need to rebuild your home, my friends. This hostility is not necessary. He does not lightly forget those who offered him aid."

A silence had fallen over the table, and a look was passed between the Elfking and the Bowman.

It seemed they would not heed her words, for they set out for the mountain the next day with a sizable host of both men and elves.

They were preparing for battle.

* * *

 

Fili kept close to her brother on the journey to Erebor, ignoring the looks sent her way.

She heard their whispers. Things around the campfire that they thought that she was not privy to. And sometimes she wasn't. But Oin wasn't half as hard of hearing as he pretended to be, and she found he was quite useful in gaining information she needed.

Kili was still on the mend, and at Fili's insistence, the Captain was released from her bonds and placed in the cot beside him, as she had suffered several burns when the dragon fell upon Esgaroth.

During the day, she would spend her time practicing diplomacy with the leaders of Lake Town and Mirkwood. Thorin's intrusion of the mountain had caused much tension between the dwarves and the other residents this side of the Misty Mountains, and it was left to Fili to soften their anger and control their outrage.

During the night, however, a guard would escort her to the Elfking's tent, and, though she could hold her own well in a fight--more then well; she was a warrior princess of Erebor--she suspected the king did not trust the men as much as they thought.

"Your silence is unsettling, mîr-nin. Tell me what ails you."

She didn't answer him, running a brush through her unruly curls. When he reached over the bed and ran his fingers over her hair, she reeled back and hissed, startling him.

"You know what ails me. Release me and let me go to my uncle, and I will persuade him not to kill you."

He looked sad at her words, but her eyes did not soften. "Your uncle has something that is precious to me."

"And what of me? Am I not also precious to you?" Fili sneered and turned back in her seat. "You hold me every night and whisper words of love in my ear, but when the time comes, you would trade me for a handful of rocks."

"I would take you as my _wife."_

His rebuttal stunned her, but only a moment later, Fili turned away from him and whispered vehemently. "I will not have you."

She heard him stand swiftly to his feet, saw the furs fall away from his naked form in the mirror before her, but she did not turn, could not find it in herself to regret her words. Her duty to her family and her kingdom came before a fleeting tryst, no matter how fond she had grown of the Elvenking.

(It was not love, could not be whilst he remained steadfast in his goal against Thorin, but she could not ignore the way he looked to her, as if Aüle himself had fashioned her out of the starlit gems he coveted so much. She wondered if anyone would look at her that way again.)

"You do not mean it," he said.

"I do."

He was standing directly behind her, his body rigid and his face stony.

But in his eyes she saw a glimpse of the pain beneath the surface, and she saw the way his hands shook ever so slightly, as if he had just realized a grievous mistake.

"I would give you the world, Fili."

It was the first time she had ever heard him say her name, and she fought the shiver that made its way up her spine.

"Thorin will refuse you," she said. "Of this I have no doubt. And when he does, you will meet him on the field of battle, and only one of you will return. If you return, you will have taken my world from me."

"And if I do not return?" He questioned, eyes boring into her reflection in the mirror.

Fili did not know how to answer.

When she kept silent, he nodded sharply turning away from her. "You will not have me."

She said nothing.

"I thought-" The Elfking sighed and slumped his shoulders, looking more feeble than she had ever seen him. In that moment, he looked not like the ancient and proud king of the First Born.

In that moment, he looked as if his heart had just been broken.

And she had no doubt it had.

"Are you asking me to choose?"

Fili had felt a spark of hope in her chest when he turned, his face more unguarded than she had ever seen it. There were tears in his eyes, and she held back a gasp when he kneeled between her legs, burying his face in her belly.

"Yes," she had breathed, running her fingers through his silver hair. "Forsake this mission. Do not challenge my uncle, and I will give myself to you. I promise, I will be yours." She placed a chaste kiss on his forehead, and she could see his resolve crumble.

"I do not want to own you, mîr-nin," he murmured into her nightshirt. "I want to love you. I want you to let me love you." Fili dropped her head back against the chair and clenched her eyes tight, bottom lip trembling as she considered her next words.

"You have my heart," she said, not opening her eyes when his head shot up. " _Have had_ my heart. But I cannot love someone who would take my kin from me. I'm sorry."

Fili took her leave of him, leaving the Elfking kneeling before the chair with tears streaming from his eyes.

They arrived at the Lonely Mountain the next afternoon, and after a short negotiation she had not been privy to, the Elfking and the Bowman signaled the drums of war.


End file.
